Though Zacharias could not talk for 9 months, he was still able to communicate with his wife. Pregnancy is an exciting experience for a couple. It comes with its ups and downs. It is a period when a couple have to make a lot of adjustments as the mother- to- be deals with the reality of carrying another human being in her body. Lots of questions to ask. The father- to -be is also curious about what is going on and then there is the added demand of providing care and support for the wife. Can you imagine what it meant for Zacharias and Elizabeth not to be able to talk throughout this period? How did Elizabeth communicate her needs? How did she get her husband’s attention when the baby kicked? How did Zacharias let Elizabeth know he cared? How did they stay involved with each other through the experience? All without audible expressions from Zacharias.

It has been said that we have two ears and one mouth because we are to listen twice as much as we speak. Gender studies often submit that men generally do not talk as much as women. Definitely for Zacharias it was 100% listening and 0% talking. It was his tongue that was tied but he could still hear. The angel said he will not be able to speak. This may have had some benefits for Elizabeth. Now she can talk without being interrupted. She can talk knowing that her husband is constrained to pay attention so he can know what to say. Now Zacharias would need to process his thoughts and write his responses. He can’t change his words because they are documented! When statements are written, they are different from words spoken into the air that cannot be easily recalled. What are some communication lessons and techniques that Elizabeth and Zacharias may have leant over the 9 month period? Here are some glimpses from their bedroom.

• Do more listening than talking: Zacharias did more listening than talking. This is one of the best gift that can be given to a woman. The gift of a listening ear and a responsive heart. Sometimes, women are looking for somebody to just listen and hear them out and not necessarily solve the issues they have. If I would speak for myself, I process through talking. Many times the solutions to my tangled up situations come as I am talking through it. I might get irritated at my husband if while I am talking he is offering solutions or making conclusions. The tendency is for me to get upset and shutdown. I feel supported and loved when he gives me his time in active, undistracted listening. Allows me say what is on my mind till I am done. At the end of the day, he finds out that he may not have to say a whole lot because I have resolved most of the issues as I was speaking. It is an interesting phenomenon about us women but that is the way it is. Our men are hereby encouraged to be intentional in being active and undistracted listeners. This may require turning off the TV, putting down the newspaper, shutting down the computer or putting away the iPad, iPod or I phone and putting it on silent without the pinging sound going off in the background. 100% attention. Zacharias had to pay attention, listen to Elizabeth and be ready to give as close to accurate feedback as possible in his written response.

• Pause: Elizabeth had to pause and give Zacharias the opportunity to write his response. She probably did not want him writing while she was speaking so she had to stop long enough for him to write. Now that takes discipline. What that meant was that she will need to be quiet and not feel uncomfortable with the silence while Zacharias wrote. She would need to be respectful by not looking over his shoulder while he wrote and making corrections and insinuations. Sometimes as women, we get impatient with our men while they are processing what they want to say. Some men are so careful about not saying the wrong thing and looking stupid that they would rather keep quiet. That now irritates the wife who feels that the husband is a stonewall and feels ignored. We need to be mutually respectful of each other’s needs and unique processing patterns.

• Delete and Rewrite: Elizabeth leant to allow Zacharias to delete, erase and re write. This is a privilege we do not have when talking. We know how many times we go over a text message or e mail, editing changing words or phrases before we finally push send. The recipient only gets the final product and whatever was deleted, changed or crossed out remains in the privacy of the mind of the sender. We all do this in our mind even when we are talking but sometimes our mouths run ahead of our thinking processes and we say things that we wish we did not say. Once verbalized, we cannot delete. Yes we may apologize and say that was not what we meant or give other excuses but the words have already been lodged in the recesses of the mind of the hearer, such that days, weeks, months and even years later, we can recall exact words spoken that either hurt us or made us glad. So even when a couple both have the capacity to talk, they should allow time for each other to process their thoughts and have a forgiving attitude that gives allowance to make corrections in what may be said wrong or wrongly. 

• Finger talks and other body Language: Zacharias devised other ways of communicating with his wife. Since he could not talk , Zacharias had to utilize other methods of communication. One was the use of his fingers in writing on the tablet. He used it eloquently on the day of the circumcision and naming of John. We can still use our fingers on the tablets this days to communicate as couples. We can type love notes through emails, express appreciation through text messages, send pictures of each other during the day. This nurtures the relationship all day long. It demonstrates intentionality in nurturing the oneness the bible spoke about in Gen 1:24. Apart from written words, Zacharias had to use more body language that was above average. Since he could not speak, he had to make use of motions and expressions. He needed to hold Elizabeth more and communicate his love and support through his touch. Professor Mehrabian’s research submitted that 58% of our expression is communicated through our body language. Holding a spouse’s hands in the midst of pain may say more than words can express. A smile, a hug, a touch, a stroke on the arm or tummy all say I am with you and we are in this together. 

• Erase Yesterday’s Notes. Zacharias and Elizabeth probably had one tablet they used together that was not pass worded. So there was transparency and openness. They probably had to erase old conversations so they could make room for new ones. Though the tablets we use this days have the capacity to store stuff in the memory, we should learn to delete old stuff and make room for new and fresh experiences. John Locke, a 17th century philosopher is renowned for depicting the human mind as a tablet and when a child is born, the mind is like a clean tablet or slate and called it Tabula rasa.

While the focus of this article is not on the psychological discuss of the concept of the mind being a tablet upon which experiences are written, we may borrow the clean slate idea. God writes His law upon our heart, therefore, it is more of what we store in the tablets of the mind than the electronic tablets that matters. However, if we are trying to forgive our spouses for something hurtful they said to us, even it was written and sent as a text message, email or other media, it will be therapeutic to delete those messages as we walk the path of forgiveness. God does that as well. He blots out our transgressions and chooses not to remember our misdeeds. Some of us hold on to this things because we either want to have evidence for litigation or justify why we should not forgive. But by the mercies of the Lord, I appeal to anyone who is experiencing pain as a result of what a significant person said or wrote to them, even as Christ forgave us by deleting our sins from His records, the handwriting that was against us, ( Isaiah 43:25, Col 2:14 ) let us go back and delete from our phones , tablets or lap tops as we receive the grace to delete from our minds as well.